Praise the Lord, Pass the Copy

Pat Robertson gets rebuffed by the Post ... or did he?

It wasn't on the order of the Virgin Mary's likeness appearing on a tortilla, but the quasi-religious apparition that materialized on the premises of the Houston Post recently set plenty of journalistic tongues on fire.

Without warning, there was Pat Robertson, inspecting the paper's presses during the evening hours of January 5 and making a swing through the newsroom the next morning. The ever-smiling televangelist was accompanied by several Asians, apparently representatives of an investment group interested in buying part or all of the Post.

When word of the visit -- and Robertson's interest in the paper -- leaked out, William Dean Singleton, the board chairman of the paper's owner, MediaNews Group, released a statement claiming the paper was not for sale and the tour was simply a courtesy for someone of Robertson's "stature in American politics."

That wasn't quite the line emanating from Robertson's camp. Spokesman Gene Kapp characterized the intent of the visit as "preliminary discussions" regarding the purchase of the paper by Robertson and an unspecified group of investors. Asked whether he endorsed Singleton's version of events, Kapp snapped, "I'm not going to have any further comment on it."

Robertson's appearance at 4747 Southwest Freeway set local media observers to wondering if his aim was to turn the weaker of the city's two daily newspapers into a beacon for the forces of Christian conservatism -- sort of a Texas version of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Washington Times. One longtime Robertson observer says The 700 Club founder has long been interested in staking an outpost in the mainstream media.

"Robertson's got a history of fascination in what he calls 'the secular media,'" says Mark O'Keefe, a former reporter for the Virginian-Pilot newspaper in Norfolk, Virginia, the home base of Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network. Robertson has turned CBN into a business-religious hybrid that brings in more than $100 million in tax exempt donations each year. Using CBN as a support base, he also founded the Family Channel, and CBN then sold the highly successful cable television network to Robertson and his son, Tim.

Robertson has written of his desire to use established media to "turn the tide" in favor of his brand of Christian morality. And the evangelist has dabbled in the secular news media before. He, like former Houston developer Joe Russo, at one point attempted to purchase the faltering United Press International wire service. When that bid failed, Robertson created Standard News, a service that he hoped would one day compete with the Associated Press.

Lest one think that a Robertson newspaper might feature such headlines as "Freedom fighters halt baby murder at abortion clinics," O'Keefe says that Standard News had a fairly sophisticated touch that kept the moralizing to a minimum. "It was mainly pitched at radio stations with the idea that if it took off they could try to do something for newspapers," says O'Keefe. "They pumped a lot of money into it but the bottom line was radio stations were skeptical of the product." In a competitive arena that included NBC and Mutual, Standard soon went belly-up.

And maybe a Robertson-controlled Post might not be half bad, if that's what it would take to keep Houston with two competing daily newspapers, and especially in light of the disinformation that the paper's current management spread to its own employees about the purpose of Robertson's visit.

In fact, Robertson's Houston foray might have remained inside media gossip except for Post publisher Ike Massey's clumsy attempt to disguise the reason behind the televangelist's presence on the paper's premises. When a member of the paper's staff asked Massey why Robertson was in the building, the publisher replied that the visitor was there because he was running for president. (Massey did not return calls from the Press for comment.) His comment got back to the Post's city desk, which in turn passed it on to the paper's Washington bureau. From there, D.C. bureau chief Kathy Kiely -- skeptical since Robertson has steadfastly denied interest in mounting a 1996 presidential bid -- put in a call to Robertson's Mecca in Virginia.

When Kapp denied that his boss had personal designs on the presidency, Kiely acted on her suspicion that it was dreams of occupying Fort Singleton rather than the White House that had drawn Robertson to Houston.

"I specifically asked him about that," Kiely explains, "because I thought it would have been coy and stupid not to. That's what everybody thought was going on. It was just being honest, that's all."

Her query drew the confirmation that Robertson and his fellow investors were indeed romancing the Post, although it's still unclear whether their interest is in MediaNews' controlling interest or in the 49 percent share owned by Rogers Communications Inc., or the whole operation. Rogers is a Canadian communications giant that now owns the Toronto Sun. The Toronto Sun Company sold the Post to Singleton's company in 1987, but came to control part of the paper again after renegotiating its original deal with Singleton. Last fall, Rogers announced its intention to liquidate the American publishing holdings of the Sun's parent company, pricking the ears of some alert Post employees to the possibility that a change could be coming in early 1995.